Great Possessions Part 35

"That is what Sir Edmund said, but believe me, Lady Rose, you have neither of you anything to go upon. You think it impossible, but you don't either of you see the immense force of the temptation. Some crimes may need a villainous nature. This, if you could see it truly, only needs one that is human under temptation, ignorant of danger, and ambitious."

"But then, was that why Edmund would have nothing more to do with the case?" thought Rose.

The look of clear, earnest, searching in Rose's eyes was clouded by a frown.

The clock struck twelve. Mr. Murray rose.

"I am half an hour late for an appointment. Lady Rose, forgive me; I am an old man, and maybe I take a harsh view of what pa.s.ses before me. But there is nothing, let me tell you, that alarms me more in the present day than the way in which men and women lose their sense of duty in their sense of sentimental sympathy."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

BROWN HOLLAND COVERS

That afternoon Rose was standing by the window in the drawing-room when she became conscious that her gown was quite hot in the burning sun, and, undoubtedly, its soft, grey tone would fade. She drew back and pulled down the blinds.

It was not the first time she had put off her black, for, in the Paris heat, it had become intolerable, and she had certainly enjoyed her visit to an inexpensive but excellent dressmaker, who had produced this grey gown with all its determined simplicity.

Rose looked round at the drawing-room now. The furniture in holland covers was stacked in the middle of the room; the pictures were wrapped in brown paper with large and rather unnecessary white labels printed with "Gla.s.s" in red letters. The fire-irons were dressed in something that looked like Jaeger and the ta.s.sels of the blinds hung in yellow cambric bags. Rose smiled a little as she recalled how strange and strong an impression a room in such a state had made on her in her childhood. The drawing-room in her London home had seemed incomparably more attractive then than at any other time. Lady Charlton had once brought Rose up to see a dentist on a bright, autumn day. She had not been much hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over. She and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, excellent cooks. Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who lived in the house. So, after lunch, she had gone out to find a cab for herself, and had left Rose to rest with a book on the big morocco sofa in the dining-room.

Rose had found her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light. The child had never seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs and recognised legs of tables and footstools. Then she had stood up and taken a comprehensive view of the whole of this world of mountains and valleys, precipices and familiar little home corners, all covered in brown holland, like sand instead of gra.s.s, all golden lights and soft shadows.

What had there been so very exciting in it--an excitement she could still recall as keenly now? Was it the greatness of the revolution, or surprise at the new order of things? It was such a startling interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the house and its human beings. A great London house wrapped up in the old way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did the house when inhabited, and out of its curl papers. Nothing could speak more of law and order and care, and the "proper" condition of things, and the self-respect of housemaids, the pa.s.sing effectiveness of sweeps, and the un.o.btrusive attentiveness of carpenters! But to the child there had been a glorious sense of loneliness and licence as she danced up and down the broad vacant s.p.a.ces and jumped over the rolls of Turkey carpets.

Rose envied that child now, with an envy that she hoped was not bitter.

It is not because we knew no sorrows in our childhood that we would fain recall it. It is because we now so seldom know one whole hour of its licensed freedom, its absolute liberty in spite of bonds.

A loud door-bell, as it seemed to Rose, sounded through the house as she closed the shutter she had opened when she came in. She knew whose ring it must be, and came quietly downstairs with a little frown.

Edmund Grosse had been shown into the library. The room looked east, and was now deliciously cool after the street. The dark blinds were half-way down, and a little pretence at a breeze was coming in over the burnt turf of the back garden.

Edmund's manner as he met her was as usual, but tinged perhaps with a little irony--very little, but just a flavour of it mingled with the immense friendliness and the wish to serve and help her.

Rose was, to his surprise, almost shy as she came into the room, but in another moment she was herself.

"Mamma has borne the journey splendidly. I've had an excellent account in a long telegram this morning."

But while she told him of their journey and of their life in Paris, a rather piteous look came into the blue eyes. Was she not to hear any of Edmund's own news? Was she not to be allowed to show any sympathy? She might not say how she had been thinking of him, dreaming of how n.o.bly he had met his troubles, praying for him in Notre Dame des Victories. She saw at once that she must not; there was something changed. It was too odd, but she was afraid of him. She shook herself and determined not to be silly. She would venture to say what she wished.

"Are things----" she began, but her voice trembled a little as, raising her head, she saw that he was watching her. "Are things as bad as you feared?"

He at once looked out of the window.

"Quite as bad as possible. I am just holding out till I can get some work. Long ago, soon after I left the Foreign Office, I was asked to do some informal work in Egypt; they wanted a semi-official go-between for a time. I wish I had not refused then; I have been an a.s.s throughout. If I had even done occasional jobs they would have had some excuses for putting me in somewhere now on the ground of my having had experience. I have just written two articles on an Indian question, for I know that part of the world as well as anybody over here, and they may lead to something. Meanwhile, I am very well, so don't waste sympathy on me, I am lodging with the Tarts, where everything is in apple-pie order."

"Oh, I am glad you are with those nice Tarts!" cried Rose, with genuine womanly relief, that in another cla.s.s of life would have found form and expression in some such remark as that she knew Mary Tart would keep things clean and comfortable, and would do the airing thoroughly.

Edmund's voice alone had made sympathy impossible, but he was a little annoyed at the cheerful tone of Rose's words about the Tarts. It was unlikely that she could have satisfied him in any way by speech or by silence as to his own affairs. But why was she so very well dressed? He had got so accustomed to her in soft, shabby black that he was not sure if he liked this Paris frock; the simplicity of it was too clever.

There was silence, and Rose rearranged a bowl of roses her sister had sent her from the country. She chose out a copper-coloured bud and held it towards him, and a certain pleading would creep into her manner as she did so.

Edmund smiled. She was really always the same quite hopeless mixture of soft and hard elements.

"Have you seen Mr. Murray, Junior?" he asked.

"Yes; he came this morning, and I can't conceive what to do. At last I got so dazed with thinking that this afternoon I have tried to forget all about it."

"That will hardly get things settled," said Edmund, rather drily.

Tears came into her eyes, and were forced back by an effort of will.

Then she told him quite quietly of Nurse Edith's evidence.

"You mean," he explained, "that there is a copy of the real will leaving everything to you. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I find it harder to believe than when I first guessed at the truth. I suppose it is an effect on the nerves, but now that we are actually proved right I am simply bewildered. It seems almost too good to be true."

Rose was also, it seemed, more dazed than triumphant. He felt it very strange that she had not told him the great news as soon as he came into the room.

"What made you say that you could not conceive what to do? There can be no doubt now." He spoke quickly and incisively.

"I cannot see," she said at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow the thing to go on."

"Of course," Edmund interjected.

"But then, if he is mistaken! He really believes that Miss Dexter received the will from Dr. Larrone and has suppressed it."

Edmund got up suddenly, and looked down on her with what she felt to be a stern attention.

"And that," she concluded, looking bravely into the grave eyes bent on her, "I absolutely decline to believe!"

"Of course," said Grosse abruptly, "it's out of the question. It's just like a solicitor--fits his puzzle neatly together and is quite satisfied without seeing the gross absurdity of supposing that such a girl could carry on a huge fraud. A perfectly innocent, fresh, candid girl, brought up in a respectable English country house--the thing is ridiculous!"

He spoke with great feeling; he was more moved than she had seen him for a long time past, perhaps that was why she felt her own enthusiasm for Molly's innocence just a little damped. He sat down again as abruptly as he had risen.

"But it would be madness to drop the whole affair. This evidence of Nurse Edith's is really conclusive; and the only thing I can see to be said on the other side would be that David might have sent the will to Madame Danterre to give her the option of destroying it. But there is just another possibility, which Murray won't even consider, that Larrone destroyed the will on the journey."

"Do you know," said Rose, with a smile, "I believe it's conceivable that it is in the box, but that she has never opened the box at all! I believe a girl might shrink so much from reading that woman's papers that she might not even open the box."

"No one but a woman would have thought of such a possibility, but I daresay you are right."

He looked at her more gently, with more pleasure, and she instantly felt brighter.

"Then don't you think it would be possible to get at some plan, some arrangement with her? It seems to me," she went on earnestly, "that we ought to try to do it privately. Perhaps we might offer her the allowance that would have been made to her mother. If she could be convinced herself that the fortune is not really hers she might give it up without all the horrid shame and publicity of a trial."

"Yes, but the scandal was public, and you have to think of David's good name."

"Yes; but then you see, Edmund, the true will would be proved publicly, and the explanation of the delay would be that it had not been found before."